Nine Years of Fall Fun: Harris Pumpkin Patch Set to Open October 4

There are certain signs that fall has arrived on the High Plains. The mornings get cooler. Harvest gets underway. Leaves begin to turn. And in Sheridan Lake, the Harris Family Pumpkin Patch opens its gates.

Beginning Sunday, Oct. 4, the Harris Family Pumpkin Patch will return for its ninth season, welcoming families to the farm every Sunday throughout October from 2 to 4 p.m.

That means four Sundays of fall fun this year—Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25—at the patch located at 14229 County Road 67 near Sheridan Lake.

Established in 2018, the Harris Pumpkin Patch has grown from a family idea into an eastern Kiowa County fall tradition.

The Harris family started the patch with a simple thought: families living in the middle of farm country should not have to drive hours to find the kind of pumpkin-patch experience available in more populated areas.

The family had watched local residents travel to the Front Range and other communities for pumpkin patches and decided there ought to be something closer to home.

“We started this adventure for our local community and the families,” Kim Harris has said of the patch’s beginnings.

And they did it in a place where growing things is not just a fall attraction—agriculture is part of everyday life.

This year, despite a hot and dry summer across the region, Harris said the pumpkin crop came through in good shape. The family harvested about 800 pumpkins this season.

The heat did bother the plants some, Harris said, but overall they handled the summer conditions well. The patch is grown using a drip irrigation system, which meant drought conditions did not significantly affect the crop.

That means families heading out this October will once again find plenty of pumpkins waiting for them.

Over the years, a Sunday afternoon at the Harris Pumpkin Patch has offered visitors a chance to slow down, get outside and enjoy the season. The patch has featured old-fashioned hayrides, face painting, photo opportunities, refreshments, a tractor-tire sandbox, a maze and, of course, the chance to head into the pumpkin patch and find just the right pumpkin to take home.

The patch also gives children an opportunity to see a little more closely where things come from—from planting a seed and watching the plant grow to eventually harvesting the fruit.

For rural families, that local experience matters.

A trip to a pumpkin patch can easily mean hours on the highway when you live in southeastern Colorado. The Harris family instead brought the fall tradition to Sheridan Lake, and families have returned year after year.

Now in its ninth season, the patch has become part of October in Kiowa County.

There is something distinctly small-town about loading up the kids on a Sunday afternoon, heading down a county road and spending a couple of hours surrounded by pumpkins, farm ground and neighbors. No long trip to the city. No need to turn it into an entire weekend away. Just an October afternoon close to home.

For four Sundays this month, families can once again make their way to Sheridan Lake, take in a little fall on the farm and continue a tradition that has now been growing right alongside the pumpkins for nine years.

The Harris Family Pumpkin Patch opens Sunday, Oct. 4, and will be open each Sunday in October—Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25—from 2 to 4 p.m. at 14229 County Road 67, Sheridan Lake.